


sing it out like it's never been sung

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Good for the Soul, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, aka Angus and blupjeans dunk on fantasy pta moms: the fic, and a birthday fic for my dear friend charm who is amazing!, angus continues to be the most competent character in taz, just some Angus bonding with barry and lup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 09:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: Barry and Lup have been in the lab for far too long, and who better to get them out than everyone's favorite boy detective?(title from "Give Me Thunder" by Ben Cottrill)





	sing it out like it's never been sung

**Author's Note:**

  * For [charmandhex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmandhex/gifts).



“I don’t know what to tell you, Madam Director, they just won’t come out--”

Lucretia sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose as she eyes a concerned Brad pacing in front of her. “It’s Lucretia, please, Brad, and I told you. Barry and Lup are just like that, whenever they have a new project. It’s not your responsibility to make sure they sleep.”

“They  _ are _ both liches, sir,” Angus interjects from where he’s perched on Lucretia’s desk, reading a book. He takes a long sip of a fantasy frappuccino and flips to the next page.

“Well, yes, but they’re in bodies right now, Angus,” Brad says, frowning. “Liches in bodies are still bodies that need sleep.”

“How did you even get to their lab anyway?”

“They’re using one of the Bureau labs right now,” Angus supplies without looking up.

Lucretia blinks. “They’re what?”

“The one not far from the former Reclaimer suite,” Brad adds. “And there are alarming noises coming from there.” He looks plaintive. “They’re spooking my plants, Madam Director.”

Lucretia sighs again, deeply. “Angus?”

“Sure thing, Aunt Lucretia.” Angus hops off the desk, still reading, scooping up his fantasy frappuccino with his other hand.

“Wait, Angus--”

“It’s fine, sir!”

Angus waves and leaves in the middle of Brad’s protests, closing the door on Lucretia’s “Really, Brad, it sounds like you yourself need to take a break--”. He winds through the halls of the moon base without needing to look up, exchanging cheerful greetings with various Bureau of Benevolence employees, until he reaches the particular lab that Barry and Lup have been holed up inside for the past four days. Brad was right; there are alarming noises emanating from the closed door, or noises that  _ would _ be alarming if you didn’t spend most of your time around Taako, ya know, from TV. Angus tucks his book under one arm and pushes the door open to a scene of only moderate chaos.

Lup, back in her body, is in the middle of the lab, hands aflame as she punches what looks like a demon made of ink in one of its many faces. Barry isn’t far away, flipping through sheaves of papers and saying “Sorry, Lup, I must have summoned the wrong thing--”

“No shit, Bear!” Lup shouts, although she doesn’t sound particularly put out about it as she punches the demon again.

Angus grins and walks in silently, jumping up and perching on the table next to Barry watching with interest as Lup continues to fistfight the ink demon. He waves excitedly as she turns and notices him with a grin, although Barry, right next to Angus, still hasn’t noticed.

“You put the wrong rune in right there, sir,” Angus says helpfully, pointing at a place in Barry’s notes.

Barry jumps about a foot in the air and swears violently in languages native to three different planes before adjusting his glasses. “Hi, Angus. Which rune?”

“That one.”

Barry peers at the page as Lup yells “Is he right, babe?”

“Yeah, Lup, he’s right!”

“Hell yeah, nice job little man!”

Angus, as Lup taught him, dabs as Lup casts an outrageously high level Fireball, spell sculpting around the three of them effortlessly and destroying the ink demon. She grins and saunters over to them, hands on her hips and still on fire. “What’s up Ango?”

“You’re scaring Brad,” Angus says, sipping at his fantasy frappuccino.

“What doesn’t scare Brad?”

“He’s typically fairly unflappable, actually,” Barry says, scribbling notes. “Not on the same level as Luce but he uh, must have taken notes.”

“He wants to make sure you sleep,” Angus adds.

“Sleep? We’re  _ liches _ ,” Lup scoffs.

“We  _ are _ in bodies.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“What day is today?”

“Tuesday?”

“ _ Which _ Tuesday?”

“ _ This _ Tuesday?”

“Four days,” Barry fills in. “Why?”

“Well, Brad is very worried about you, and so is Aunt Lucretia.”

“Aw, you can tell Creesh we’re fine,” Lup says, touseling Angus’s hair.

“You were just fighting an ink demon,” Angus points out, shooing her hands away, wrinkling his nose and trying in vain to fix his hair. “Cause you miswrote the runes.”

“He’s got us there, Lup.”

“We just have to redo the runes then,” Lup says, plucking the papers from Barry’s hands. “Look, if we rewrite them  _ here _ \--”

“You know,” Angus interrupts. “I’m almost done with my Caleb Cleveland book. And there’s a real good ice cream stand that’s right by my favorite bookstore.”

“Angus,” Lup says, very seriously. “Are you trying to manipulate us into getting you ice cream and a book?”

“It  _ is _ almost my birthday.”

“Your birthday’s in six months, bud,” Barry says, raising his eyebrows.

“Close enough!” Lup says. “Babe let’s go get ice cream.”

“And a book,” Angus adds.

“And a book,” Lup agrees.

“But the experiment--”

“It can wait,” Lup says, grabbing his hand and slinging her other arm around Angus’s shoulders. He’s grown, since the Day of Story and Song, and she doesn’t have to bend down very much at all anymore. “Ice cream!”

“And books!”

“And books!”

“Okay, okay,” Barry casts a casual cloaking spell behind them as they leave the lab, smiling at Lup as his wife pulls him along. He too ruffles Angus’s hair, grinning as Angus tries in vain to fix it again.

Avi looks up with a start as they come into the hanger bay, Angus having to persuade them to not just jump off the edge of the moon base for once, with the reasoning that they needed to give Avi something to do. “Oh, uh, hey guys!” he calls, tucking away his flask as surreptitiously as possible, which for Avi isn’t particularly surreptitious. “Where to?”

“Neverwinter, please!” Angus says cheerfully.

“We’re getting ice cream,” Lup adds.

“And at least one book,” from Barry.

“Oh. Have fun, guys! Tell Annette I say hi!”

“Will do!” Angus says, climbing into the pod.

“ _ Who _ is Annette?” Lup asks, grinning.

“Oh, she runs the ice cream stand. She’s real nice!”

Annette is indeed very nice, and surprisingly, not particularly starstruck by her stand being visited by two of the saviors of the multiverse, along with everyone’s favorite boy detective.

“Now, tell me babe, why do you look familiar?” Lup asks her, hands on her hips.

“You borrowed my broomstick spear, on the Day,” Annette says with a smile. “Hi Angus!”

“Hi Miss Annette!”

“It was a very good spear,” Lup says, comprehension dawning, offering her a fist bump.

“Yeah, thanks for saving the multiverse and all,” Annette says with a shrug, fist bumping her back. “Even though we helped. Pistachio, Angus?”

“Yes please!”

“I think you killed a Hunger lion when it was about to kill me,” Barry says.

“Sure did. Aren’t you lactose intolerant? I have sorbet.”

“Why does everyone remember that?” Barry mumbles as Lup pats him consolingly on the shoulder.

“Raspberry sorbet for my loving, lactose intolerant husband, pistachio,  _ apparently _ , for our boy Ango, and mint chocolate chip for me.”

“On the house,” Annette says, grinning as she scoops their ice cream. “Angus, you know Sargon’s not gonna be happy if you bring those into his store.”

“I  _ guess _ ,” Angus says, frowning until Annette hands him a cone of pistachio ice cream approximately the size of his head. “Oh, Aunt Lup, Uncle Barry, I could give you a tour of Neverwinter?”

“It’s true we haven’t been around the actual city all that much, when it wasn’t under siege,” Barry says, licking his sorbet and gazing adoringly at Lup until she sighs and gives him a small lick of her mint chocolate chip.

“Let’s do it. Lead the way, Ango!”

Angus does, narrating their way through the streets of Neverwinter as they make steady work of their ice cream and/or sorbet. Of course, most of Angus’s notable spots are the various locations of murders he’s solved.

“And  _ that _ alley is where I fought the Beast of Neverwinter Wood with a bard friend of mine! I crossbowed him in the shoulder and she knocked him down so I could arrest him!”

“Holy shit,” Lup says admiringly. “Who the fuck is the Beast of Neverwinter Wood?”

“Serial killer,” Angus says with a shrug. “Not the worst one I caught. Oh and  _ that _ square is where I negotiated to release some hostages from a disgruntled former bank employee!”

“The militia just incompetent around here or what?” Lup mutters.

“Yep,” Barry nods. “Except for Lieutenant Jerry, right bud?”

“Surprisingly, yes!” Angus says cheerfully. “Considering how incompetent most Jerrys are, it’s a nice change!”

Lup starts laughing, interrupting herself only when black light begins to pool from her hands. “Ah, Bird Momma’s calling.”

“Looks like we got a job, bud,” Barry says apologetically, summoning his scythe.

“I can go with you?” Angus suggests. “As backup?”

“I mean, we should say no, right?” Lup says, looking to Barry. “Like he’s a kid.”

“Competent kid though,” Barry says with a shrug, tearing open a rift.

“I  _ do _ have my mini crossbow,” Angus says, raising it. “And my wand!”

“Okay yeah let’s do it,” Lup says with a grin.

“Stay behind us though,” Barry adds, ushering Lup through the rift first as they both shift to their reaper forms.

“Okay!” Angus follows them through, loaded crossbow in one hand, wand in the other. They step out onto a blasted wasteland, in typical necromancer style, the hot wind howling and swirling up dust and ash. Angus huffs and casts a quick spell on his glasses to keep them clean as he peers past the reapers. Lup is literally on fire, her brilliant red and black dress sleek and elegant, cutting an imposing figure in the dull landscape as she towers above the tiny circle of necromancers mid-ritual. Barry is threatening too, no denim to be seen, inky blackness leaking from his dark robes, his normally kindly face a hollow-eyed skull.

“Alright,” Barry says, one of the Raven Queen’s books appearing, floating in the air next to him. “That’s quite enough of that.”

“Surrender now or we fuck shit up,” Lup says with a vicious grin. “And yeet your souls straight to the Eternal Stockade.”

The three necromancers pull down their hoods, exchanging anxious glances. The leader seems to be a short human woman with mousy brown hair, her companions two half-elves with bronze skin and nervous eyes.

Angus recognizes all three of them.

“Karen?” he asks, poking his head out from between Lup’s fire and Barry’s blackness. “And Susan and Jenny? What are you three  _ doing _ ?”

“Angus?” The human woman, Karen apparently, asks, staring at him in shock.

“Ango, you know these fools?” Lup asks, raising one fiery eyebrow.

“Yeah, they’re some of the moms in the PTA at Lucas’s school.”

“Babe, I thought you  _ talked _ to Lucas about necromancy.”

Barry somehow looks sheepish without actually having a face. “Uh. I did. We just ended up arguing about ethical necromancy for about four hours.”

“He yelled at Mr. Lucas about ethical necromancy for about four hours,” Angus corrects.

“Uh, yeah, that.”

“We’re just summoning a  _ small _ demon, Angus,” Karen says, Susan and Jenny nodding along with nervous smiles. “Nothing big, it’s just my little Gerald could use a boost in his studies, you know.”

“My Craig just isn’t going to pass Planar Theory without help.”

“And my Timothy really wants to get on the soccer team.”

“He just needs to try out, Mrs. Loggins,” Angus says, shaking his head. “And I set up a tutoring center specifically so that parents didn’t  _ need _ to make deals with demons for their kids to pass classes.”

“This is why you should go to Koko’s school,” Lup says, twirling her scythe. “So, Suburban White Mom Day Drinkers Anonymous, are you going to  _ stop _ summoning that demon or do we get to have some fun?”

Karen exchanges another look with Susan and Jenny and shrugs. “Sorry, Angus, I’m sure you understand,” she says, raising her hands, crackling with black necrotic energy. She fires off a shot directly at Angus’s face, which Barry blocks with his cape without even blinking (the sentiment is clear despite his current lack of eyelids).

“Take a few steps back, bud,” Lup says with a grin, her inferno growing hotter.

Angus does, watching as Lup and Barry swoop into action. Really, the three PTA moms don’t stand a chance, being relatively low-level necromancers, and Angus ends up just wandering around the edge of the fight and peering at their circle, noting with a critical air how they mis-transposed the runes for summoning and the runes for defense. He stows his crossbow and sticks his wand behind his ear as he takes out one of his notebooks, denim covered, a gift from Barry last Candlenights. He jots down a few notes to show to Barry and Taako later and casually takes a step back as a streak of necrotic energy flies past his face.

“Sorry bud,” Barry calls.

“It’s okay, Uncle Barry, I had a good dex save.”

“Of course you did,” Jenny snaps, turning to him furiously. “ _ You _ get tutored by  _ Taako _ !”

“I sure do, ma’am,” Angus says, taking his wand out from behind his ear and tucking away his jotebook. “But that started before he saved the world.”

Jenny growls and shoots a surprisingly high level Ray of Enfeeblement towards him, which Angus avoids by simply ducking. A second later, Barry’s scythe sweeps through her, jerking out her soul and slingshotting it through a portal that Lup creates, directly into the Eternal Stockade.

“Timothy  _ could _ be on the soccer team,” Angus says, tapping his wand. “I should go talk to him, since he’s not gonna have a mom now.”

“Well, for a bit,” Lup says, conjuring a wall of fire to block the increasingly wild spells from an outraged Karen and Susan. “She just needs a good talking to, and maybe a block put on necromancy, and then we’ll send her back.”

“It’s rehabilitation, not just a prison,” Barry adds.

“I’m not going back to jail!” Susan yells.

“I just said--”

Lup rolls her eyes and ducks around the two remaining necromantic moms, slicing through Susan and tossing her soul into the Eternal Stockade.

“No!” Karen howls, a thunderous growl under her words as she begins to change, taking on a monstrous appearance and growing about six feet up and out. A few seconds later, a demonic PTA mom stands before them, her skin like rough gray rock, her eyes a burning red, teeth poking sharp and jagged out of her mouth. She roars, wordless, and charges them, only for Angus to shrug and cast a casual 4th level Scorching Ray directly between her eyes.

Turns out that 33 points of fire damage, followed up by two reapers, will make short work of any PTA mom, openly demonic or otherwise.

“Nice job, little man,” Lup says approvingly, zipping shut the portal after tossing a gibbering Karen’s soul through it, to join her fellows in the Eternal Stockade.

“Thanks, Aunt Lup!”

“Did you  _ see _ that circle?” Barry says, eyeing the scuffed remains of the summoning circle as flesh folds back over his skeleton.

“Not elegant at all,” Lup agrees, dropping her flames.

“They mis-transposed a bunch of the runes,” Angus adds, taking out his jotebook again.

“Oh, you took notes!”

“Of course I did, Uncle Barry,” Angus says, offended. “I’m the world’s greatest detective, you don’t think I know to take notes at every crime scene?”

Barry is saved from having to answer that by his stone ringing. He answers it to the unfortunate tones of Kravitz’s work accent, demanding an explanation for the three PTA moms suddenly in the cells of the Eternal Stockade.

“Someone needs to teach boss man how to keep up with the paperwork again,” Lup says with a grin.

“You never do paperwork, Aunt Lup.”

“You’re goddamn right I don’t. Now, I think I still owe you a book.”

Angus considers this for a few moments as Barry attempts to explain the situation to a still irritated Kravitz. “I think you owe me  _ two _ books.”

Lup laughs, offering him a fist bump. “Can’t argue with that, Ango. Let’s go.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday charm!!!!! i hope you like these ango and blupjeans shenanigans!!! everyone should go check out charm's wonderful wonderful writing and also wish her a happy birthday!
> 
> comments? sure! kudos? also very good!
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


End file.
